Of course I knew about
her past when she came to work for me. I may be old, but I’m
not stupid. I know
I should have sent her on her way there and then, but you
didn’t see her. She
was so pathetic, so vulnerable, I couldn’t just turn my back
on her. So I let
her sleep in the loft above the stables and carry out odd jobs around
the yard.
What did I care what people said? I was above that. I’d
already proven my
worth.

Of course, I didn’t know the
whole story, but
that came out over time. Sometimes if I was out in the yard,
she’d tell me her
story while she worked, rambling on, not really caring whether or not I
was
listening. I think she just wanted to talk. Put
her side of it. So, over time, I managed to piece it together.

Of course, she’s gone now. She
looked so
peaceful when it was all over, curled up in the straw. I know
you’ll say she
should have done it straight away, but at least she did the right thing
in the
end. It’s easy to criticise, it’s easy to say what
she should have done, but we
all know that it’s not so easy to actually do it when it
comes to the crunch.
To be honest, I felt sorry for her. I still do.

I was there when it happened, you know.
Mary,
her friend, came to warn me. I think they wanted to make sure
I’d be out of the
way so there’d be no embarrassing scenes for the poor girl. Perhaps
I should have gone for a stroll, but I
wanted to see how it ended.

I know Mary from her stories. She was
her best
friend. They’d been friends since childhood, had grown up
together, been bridesmaids
at each other’s weddings. Even after all she’d been
through, she still spoke of
Mary as a friend in our talks in the yard. She was very faithfully,
which makes
it even more of a shame.

Their husbands had been friends too and
they’d
gone off to the war together. What a glorious day that was. She told me
all
about it. Many times she told me how she and Mary had gone to see them
off,
though sometimes it was hard to understand what she was saying through
the
tears.

Mary was a tower of strength to her
then. It
was always Mary who was the cheerful one, always Mary who helped her
through
the moments of doubt.

And then the war was over and they
started to
come back. I can remember the homecoming parades. I was there too you
know. So
what if all my sons are dead now? I can still celebrate the return of
our
heroes. It still makes me proud after all these years.

Oh, the flags, the crowds, the bands
playing
and the returning heroes marching up the street to the beat of the
drum,
falling out one by one as they spotted their wives or families. Just
the
thought of it brings tears to my eyes.

Not that I knew her at the time, but she
was
there. Three days she and Mary went, watched and returned home alone.
Then, on
the fourth day, the bodies came, the fallen heroes, returned to their
families.
Those who had already returned lined the streets, standing to
attention, and
those who formed the escort for their fallen comrades no longer fell
out when
they saw their families, staying with the heroes until every flag
wrapped body
had been claimed.

On the fifth day, Mary’s
husband returned,
fallen in battle and wrapped in glory and the flag. It was what he had
always
wanted, said Mary through her tears. Now he was a hero, gone to join
his father
and his brother. She told me it was the proudest day of
Mary’s life.

Of course it was. I still remember when
my
eldest came back. I still remember the feelings of pride and sorrow,
but always
pride would win out. He was assured of his place, his eternal glory.
Now all my
boys have joined him. Who wouldn’t be proud?

Of course, she had nothing to be proud
of,
because her husband didn’t come back, neither amongst the
dead or the living.
She took to asking the others if they’d seen her husband, if
they knew what had
happened to him, but they wouldn’t say. She even went to the
graveyard to ask
Mary’s husband, for they had been friends, who would have
fought and died
together, but he too was silent.

She spoke warmly of Mary and her actions
during those days. Now that her husband was gone, she had no money and
Mary was
very generous, though she could afford to be with her widow’s
pension. They
would go out walking most days, Mary in the traditional black of the
war widow,
with the Widow’s Cross pinned proudly to her chest.

At first, people took her to be
Mary’s
companion, and everyone showed them the proper reverence due to a war
widow,
but as time went on, things began to change. One day, while out
walking, they
passed an old lady who was standing on her doorstep when she made a
remark to
her companion that was meant as a whisper, but was just loud enough to
be
heard.

She told me that although she was deeply
shocked and hurt, she had pleaded with Mary to ignore the old lady, but
Mary
had had none of it. She rounded on them, insisting that her husband was
a hero,
shaming the old lady for her words.

“Hold your head up
high,” Mary had said. “Show
them your pride in your husband and no-one will doubt him.”

However, that was the last day that Mary
walked out in public with her, and, a few days later, the parcels of
food
stopped arriving.

One morning, she awoke to find the word
“Coward”
scrawled on the walls of her house. She told me that she remembered
that day
very clearly, remembered spending the morning cleaning the outside of
her
house, ignoring the passers by who stopped at the fence and made
comments to
their companions in low voices, judged just loud enough for her to
hear.

When she had removed every trace of the
words
from her house, she went inside and put on her coat and hat. As she
walked down
the street, no-one acknowledged her. Men who had marched off arm-in-arm
with
her husband not so long ago crossed the street to avoid her or turned
their
backs as she passed.

Hold your head up high, she told me. My
husband is a hero. Let them see my pride.

Then, Mary, still dressed in black and
wearing
the Widow’s Cross on her chest, passed her in the street
without even turning her
head.

She always broke down in tears at this
point
in the story and I never did find out what happened next, save to say
that a
few weeks later she was at my back gate, begging for a corner of the
yard to
sleep in.

By then I’d heard about her.
Who hadn’t? She’d
had a few jobs, the maid at a house, even a shop girl, but always her
past had
caught up with her and she’d had to move on. I know I
shouldn’t have, but I
took her in.

And here she stayed until her husband
found
her. Mary came to warn me that he was coming, which gave me just enough
time.
You see, there’s a place in the house where there’s
a door to the loft of the
stables. If you sit there, quietly, you can hear everything
that’s said and if
you look through the keyhole, you’d be surprised at what you
can see.

She was sitting on the straw bed
she’d made
for herself at the far end of the loft when he came in. I saw the look
of
surprise on her face, then the look of hope and then she must have seen
the
look on his face, because the hope gave way to misery. Not that I could
see his
face, you understand, because I couldn’t see him at all, but
I could hear him.

She buried her head in her hands and
started
to cry.

“Well?” he asked,
after a long while.

“I waited,” she
said. “I waited for so long,
but you never came back. Everyone said you were a, were a...”

“Go on,” he said.
“Say it.”

She shook her head, not even looking up.

“Then I’ll say it. A
coward. That’s what you
thought, didn’t you? That your husband was a
coward.”

She shook her head again.

“Then why didn’t you
wait for me?”

“I couldn’t stand
the shame!”

“The shame!” he
roared. “You couldn’t stand
the shame? What about me?”

“I didn’t believe...
I always thought...”

“Thought what? That
I’d come back? Is that why
you’re here then? If you thought I’d come back,
you’d still be waiting for me!”

“I’m so
sorry,” she cried, holding out her
arms to him.

“So am I,” he said,
his voice breaking and
taking his anger away with it. “You don’t know what
it was like. We were
trapped, cut off. I could have died a hundred times and word would
never have
got back. But I didn’t. And you know what kept me going? You
did.”

She hung her head, dropped her arms to
her
sides.

“The thought of you, waiting
for me. Knowing
you’d be there for me, believing in me. That’s what
kept me going. I could have
died a hundred times, an anonymous, coward’s death, but I
kept going for you,
to spare you the shame.”

“I still believe,”
she protested. “Now you’re
back, we can show them. I can hold my head up again.”

“Please,” he said,
and I swear that I heard
tears in his voice. “Don’t do this. You know
it’s too late. How can I be seen
with you again? Everyone knows. Everyone knows you didn’t
stand by me. How can
you still be my wife?”

“I’m so
sorry,” she sobbed and she buried her
face in the straw.

I sat there for a long while, wondering
what
would happen next. I don’t think she heard him leave, or
heard Mary take his
place, because she seemed surprised when she eventually looked up and
saw her
standing there.

“You poor thing,”
said Mary, coming to sit
beside her on the straw.

“Mary? What are you doing
here?”

“I’ve come to help.
We’ve both come to help.”

“Oh Mary, what am I going to
do?”

“You know what you have to do.
Here,” she
said, handing her a small package. “Take this.”

She opened the package and poured out a
white
powder into the palm of her hand.

“Will it hurt?” she
asked.

“No. It’ll be just
like going to sleep.”

She thought for a long while and then
looked
up.

“Mary. Promise
me something.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Look after him for
me.”

“Of course I will.”

“And stay with me. Until
I’ve gone to sleep.”

Mary nodded and held her hand while she
put
the powder into a glass of water and drank it. Then she curled her head
into
her friend’s lap and quietly went to sleep.

Of course, they left me to deal with the
body,
but at least they were generous, enough to pay off the various
officials and to
pay for a proper yard boy to do her work. Not that anyone was sorry to
see her
go or asked any questions. Not that they invited me to the wedding
either, but
then I can understand that too.